stone-cutters Harvard-Westlake School 2017
Cover Artist Statements Front Cover: This piece is part of a series that I made while at the Middle School in Ms Cochran’s inspiring class. We were preparing for a new project where we were going to paint directly on to prints of photos that we had taken. After looking through many photos for inspiration, I decided to physically paint on my body. I did this so that when I went to paint on the print of the photo, the dynamic between the paint on the surface and that in the the photo would be almost confusing, and would make the viewer curious. I never got around to finishing the project because I thought that the photos turned out to be so striking by themselves that I didn’t want to overpower them. The series of photos was so fun to make; wearing a swim cap and smearing paint over my face while getting some very judgmental looks was a hilarious experience that I won’t soon forget. This whole process paid off when somehow another one of the photos won a National Gold Key in the Scholastics Awards for Art and Writing last year! - Anja Clark Back Cover: The vases are slip-cast from a stone I found on a beach in Santa Barbara. The stone has a simple shape, but the oval ring on its face is a detail that is interesting to me. These vases are inspired by the contrast between the natural and industrialized world. Nothing is replicated exactly in nature, but by industrializing nature and bringing it into the home, I created a simple object that challenges the freedom of nature, while displaying its beauty in a specific way to those around me. I like how the vases are delicate, but the rock itself is indestructible - it makes the viewer think about how our world is constructed. - Russell Davis
stone-cutters
Stone-Cutters was printed at Southern California Graphics in Culver City on 80# uncoated book paper stock in Adobe Caslon Pro Typeface. 1,000 copies were distributed for free at Harvard-Westlake School. Harvard-Westlake School // 3700 Coldwater Canyon // Studio City, CA 91604 // 818.980.6692 // www.hw.com The editors and contributors gratefully acknowledge those in the Harvard-Westlake community who have helped to make this possible, in particular the members of the Visual Arts and English departments, and all the teachers, mentors, friends, and family who support our creative development.
Front cover: Anja Clark Zenith Inkjet print 11 in. x 11 in.
Above: Ben Weinman Re: Brakhage Paint on film 2 in. x 47 in.
To the Stone-Cutters Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore defeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down The square-limbed Roman letters Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly: For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth dies, the brave sun Die blind, and blacken to the heart: Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found The honey of peace in old poems. Robinson Jeffers
Dear Readers, It is our honor to present to you all the 2017 issue of Stone-Cutters. We have chosen the very best of our community’s artistic creations to feature in this year’s magazine. We would like to thank these artists for providing us with these magnificent works, which stand as reminders that even in divided times, we at least have the enduring ability to create art. What marks this issue in terms of relevance is that each piece bears a unique story; each is beautiful regardless of whether it was formed through ink, paint, or clay. Perhaps you have never been a part of these stories: never lost a loved one, never felt pressured into hiding your face with make-up, never been afraid of the people who are meant to protect you. But perhaps you have. Perhaps you’ve lived them. Nevertheless, when we create art, we also create empathy. Because the borders of our art may shape our expression of our individual experiences, but they can never define us. Art serves as fleeting glimpses into the vast spectrum of the human experience, exposing us to joy, melancholy, anxiety, monotony, love, nostalgia, frustration, and compassion, wherever we are in this world. We feel incredibly fortunate to share with you works of art and writing that are not afraid to be vulnerable. Our hope is that, after reading this issue, you will be left with a sense of the beauty of others’ realities. If not the hidden meaning of a stanza’s structure or the intentions of the curves of a sculpture, then may you at least be moved by the emotion that it compels you to feel. The world could do with a little more beauty and a little more understanding. Your Editors, Jenny Lange, Elizabeth Kim, and Talia Ratnavale 2
Visual Arts 4 Classic by Anna Gong ’18 6 Icarus Falls Again by Anna Gong ’18 8 Jar and Bowl by Russell Davis ’17 9 Whatta Drag by Madeline Madison ’17 10 Dance Production by Jack Cohen ’18 12 Don’t Shoot by Nico Brown ’17 13 Totem by Russell Davis ’17 16 Expressionist Self-Portrait by Elly Hong ’17 19 A Whole New World by Sophie Kim ’19 21 In a Pickle by Rasa Barzdukas ’17
22 The Dyslexic Spider’s Web by Nic Smith ’17 27 Cul de Sac by Nico Brown ’17 29 Interaction by Anja Clark ’19 30 Knife by Allie Sassa ’19 32 Feeling Around by Rasa Barzdukas ’17 Front cover Zenith by Anja Clark ’19 Inside cover Re: Brakhage by Ben Weinman ’17 Back cover Stone Vases by Russell Davis ’17 Literary 5 Old Place by Jenny Lange ’17 7 Scheherazade by Sophie Kim ’19
34 Paper Face by Kameron Cooper ’17 37 White Cherimoya by Vanessa Payne ’19 38 Melting Pot by Chantalle Wang ’17 39 KINGS by Jack Cohen ’18 40 Jane by Genie Kilb ’17 42 Rendezvous by Sophie Kim ’19
11 To Do It Again by Elizabeth Kim ’17 14 Eternal Voices by Jack Li ’17 17 shatter/fall by Meera Sastry ’19 18 On Venice, Italy, Venice, California, and the Passage of Time by Sophia Dienstag ’17 23 still water by Elizabeth Kim ’17 24 Donuts by Nate Hollader ’17 28 for my mother by Annie Wendorf ’19 31 I hate ketchup by Ben Pimstone ’18 33 Methinks The Lady Doth Protest Too Much by Talia Ratnavale ’17 35 Birthday Wish by Jillian Sanders ’17 36 when my grandmother died by Iman Akram ’18 41 A Cover Girl Writes a Letter Home from the Big City by Jenny Li ’19 3
Anna Gong Classic Oil on canvas 24 in. x 24 in.
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Old Place Doubtful, yet purposefully naive, we gun it. Mount rocks and pebbles, pebbles and blades that slice between hope and heart, light and stark cold, blindfolded and deciding it will be okay. Something unspoken, yet painfully there. We stop. The sun is gone, in its place a darkness so warm it feels like home, or hell, I suppose. A waning nostalgia, a waxing ignorance I wish would stay. Because things have changed does this mean we are expirable? Jenny Lange
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Anna Gong Icarus Falls Again Charcoal on paper 20 in. x 16 in. 6
Scheherazade
(after “Crush” by Richard Siken)
Tell me about the night when we thought no poetry could serve, when the boy made in blue said he was leaving the next morning. When we played with line and shape and form because we thought it would make us beautiful, picked feathers off the ground and lined our chests and said: now we are flying angels who fear no sunrise. When we made ourselves caverns in the valleys of words we’d never said to each other, When I promised to tell everyone I loved that I loved them. That night when we ran so deep into ourselves that we forgot to come out when bygone prayers turned mourning
to
Sophie Kim
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Russell Davis Jar and Bowl Glazed stoneware Jar: 6.5 in. x 7in. Bowl: 5.75 in x 8 in
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Madeline Madison Whatta Drag Marker and pen on paper 17 in. x 14 in. 9
Jack Cohen Dance Production Inkjet print 12 in. x 19 in.
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To Do It Again Antelopes run, their calligraphy bodies sowing ghosts into the grass. The dust they leave behind, dried ink. I press my knees into the earth so that its ache will spread into my blood and know body-heat. Trampled, familiar. Close to a memory: running away from my body only to feel my chest heave at the end of the road. (On days like that I would count each line of my ribs, see if I could at least leave a woman behind.) This is the secret of fear: there is a spring towards extinction when we have waned into myth before we are even born. And being afraid means living tomorrow even though tomorrow is a day closer to death because we have done it before. Once, the rose ring of my mouth was oil-slick with dreams of fire, which made light as it burned my body down. Elizabeth Kim
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Nico Brown Don’t Shoot Inkjet print 24 in. x 35 in.
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Russell Davis Totem Pole Cedar wood 17 in. x 1 in. x 1 in. 13
Eternal Voices
(collection inspired by “The Odyssey” by Homer)
Theoklymenous Foul mist ruptures scorched earth, rivulets of blood across your cloak— gleaming swords can’t save you now. Face the sludge of a million shadows. Cerberus crunches up Hephaestus’ gauntlets, and your finely-wrought breastplate. He’ll snap you up. I see an Ithakan haft plunging into your side. Odysseus will crack your gold-lined armor — what you eat will be what you become. See how the master mariner will swamp this hall with your blood. No eternal night will settle on me. Laugh all you want, young men.
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Poseidon’s Trident I erupt: a three-pronged assault catapults into the heavens, impaling frothy champagne waters. Ivory whale carcasses, entangled in silky algae, surge through salt-devoured arteries. Athena bares her gold-trimmed sword and shield— Prince Odysseus is her favorite mortal. I slide through the goddess’ impenetrable defense, sweeping the helmsman into kelpy oblivion, washing the cook left to marinate for centuries in salt-crystal tides. My brother hurls his glowing spears, Aeolus’ zephyrs cease, replaced by howling gales. I grit my teeth in rage. Brine gnaws at the wooden hull while oscillating tides slice shallow furrows. I hunt in revenge for a son without his eye. Anxious to return to his wife, Odysseus, master tactician, wields his blade, scorching the salt-tinged air. Skies quiver on violin strings. Our blades, forged by Hephaestus, spark, equal in iron might, until my three tired arms begin to crack— and I reluctantly submerge back into the Aegean, watching the mortal drift off into Pyrrhic victory. Jack Li
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Elly Hong Expressionist Self-Portrait Charcoal and ink on paper 17 in. x 11 in. 16
shatter/fall my stomach hurts with the same old ache, the perpetual ebb and flow, like the sea i forever miss & the snow; winter doesn’t fit my bones but i feel stifled in the heat. & how we crave the things that destroy us, how we chase them. i chase you; i forget, after some time, what love is supposed to look like. you crush me once, twice, all flower-petals, grass stuck to your palms & she loves me loves me loves me like a prayer to a god i don’t even believe in. all that blood and all that love runs blue now– you slice me in half, iceberg, & the afternoons we spent licking ice cream off our fingertips & the too-neat lawns and the sunsets. i package it up, & it waits for you or some other girl to brush it off & kiss the cobwebs away. i can know your body, yes, it’s right there, within reach, sweatshirt hiked up above your hips, but i want to know your mind & to be destroyed as you destroy yourself. i want your always, but even more, i want your never. Meera Sastry
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On Venice, Italy, Venice, California, And the Passage of Time Venice, Italy I The fog breathes quiet wisps of gray With fingers curling as she sleeps. June morning. A merchant, fading, sighs and sweeps The wooden porch on which he sat Mending mask and tricorn hat For his younger selves all cloaked in wind on water cornered blocks; The street lamps dimmed Near churches and small synagogues Where praying now the men begin biting into figs with cream; An offer to the libertine. II You glimpsed him early by a window frame Then in the dueling pistols’ glare And bent between two prison bars He slipped and scaled down palace walls, where Sneaking by the red and yellow hues And lovers floating past the pews Humming blithely in their boats With hands in flaming scarlet coats And petticoats and buckled shoes upon the rims, He masked himself in a city Whose beak-like chin sits in that fading merchant’s hand. III In these hours blink the days of yore In Titian’s eyes Of horseshoe clicks Of wooden stakes concealed by floating walls — Four meters tall — Bogged down in grime. One thinks of all the nimble hands That have strung up pastel cloths And bathed in sticky summertime. 18
One thinks of falling through the lines Of now and then and here and there And how on every water cornered block lived something once that now is not. I walk through cities that change And unchange their spines To seek the new yet retain some fading, near unknowable time. Mend your mask and tricorn hat and pray; In summer, gods sigh and lick the sweet cream off figs Like libertines hanging from open window frames.
Sophie Kim A Whole New World Inkjet print 5.5 in. x 7.25 in. 19
Venice, California I ocean foam sprays and shutters shift closed on hot days for pitter patter barefeet tips of toes in a beep beep distant sunset blue, pop! metal cans coat ship-lined shore lines roller skates too zig here and zag that and this way to the sea and this bikini makes me look fat and you are itching in your skin you inhale burgers and the breeze beneath noon July water; you sip the sweetest of the seas. II old man eyes shut in burning sand young mother in the waves grabs her pudgy-armed boy by the hand with those coral-colored nails beach umbrella silhouettes and flip flop tracks and seagulls perched on unfurled sails and you skate past the woman (with your Lords of Dogtown cool) whose feet are dirt bare whose belongings are a cardboard sign who says I promise I’ll buy food this time. III While you bike & skate or skate & surf down railing roads grabbing a Jodi Maroni’s sausage kingdom dog bite in from the side, chew it as you go faster faster to the man selling you his rap CD to a woman high on homemade stilts to children on the muscle beach past the swaying palm trees, smiling as they wilt. see this boardwalk from more than one pair of eyes walk down the wooden planks to live a hundred different lives. how many poor women have there really been? we must build this world up from color; paint it her to him. Sophia Dienstag 20
Rasa Barzdukas In a Pickle Inkjet print 10 in. x 10 in.
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Nic Smith The Dyslexic Spider’s Web Fused glass 5.5 in. x 10 in. x 10 in.
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still water there are some children who grow up thinking the only way to break is into bullets and bone. see, some have fractured years — the beginnings & the ends fossilizing all at once. a tight-lipped winter here. a too-grown summer there, when the boys flung their bodies into the river like dropped coins. their small chests puffed out like overblown fish. i thought of how it must feel to feel hunted while wading knee-deep, how it must feel to live in a looking glass of a body & still cup your palms to kiss the water. it seemed everywhere they touched was haloed & begging to be made perfectly still again. that was when the sun opened up their skinny torsos & saw gold. i wondered if it made them ache. one of the boys rose out of the water so fast that his reflection splintered, reformed into a stallion glistening with pearl & salt. i saw him as a balefire before he became a boy. they were all like this: wanting a bleary quiet, wanting to pull on a name, like those that are given underwater in cold forgiving churches. so they pushed each other’s heads down with a god-like love, just long enough for them to want deeply for breath. to arrive here, an untouched pool. they could only break their ankles at the bottom. Elizabeth Kim 23
Donuts The first time it happened was twenty-nine years ago. I was seventeen and had just started driving. I lived in Chicago, but had taken a road trip to Duluth and Grand Marais because of a donut shop that would change my outlook on existence, and donuts. It was a sunny day and had been a sunny week: the white winter ground was brightened and looked like printer paper. I was cautious, being a new driver and all; but, took my fixed eyes off the one-lane highway and looked out the open window as the air bit my face and my breath froze and the chocolate glaze ran off the dough and onto my fingers and saw the beauty: an utterly pristine, obviously untouched, frozen-over Minnesota lake. My donut-less hand turned the wheel, the colors of the sky played with the blank ice, and the vehicle’s right tires began to slip. I wanted to join it, to go out and touch it, to be part of the entity. I caught myself and quickly righted the wheel. I don’t know how to fully put it into words, considering how long ago it was, but it kept happening.1 It happened three years ago. I had just started taking a new route home from work.2 I was racing, really moving, home; I can’t remember why I was in such a rush, maybe the dog swallowed something it shouldn’t have or one of the kids was having an issue with a teacher or something dumb, but I was in a rush. And I came around this one corner and took a look at the beauty, real and true, that was beyond the edge of the road. What would happen if I didn’t make a turn and allowed myself to drop off a cliff or if I refused to touch the brakes and careened into the car in front of me? What if I just let myself fly off the side? I knew, but only for an instant, I could become one with the immensity I saw before me. Then the knowledge left me and I corrected the vehicle and went home. The most recent memory I have of this phenomenon—I guess it’s a phenomenon— happened today, a few moments ago. I had a great day. I did good work, or so I was told. The boss had let us leave early because it was his brother’s birthday and he had to be home anyway. The kids had been waiting for me to get home to show me their new, and hopefully improved, short docu-drama on the life of Elizabeth Bathory.3 The weather had been fine, 1 Fairly regularly, too. I won’t go into detail about all of them because that would take much longer than I have. And
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I don’t have much time left. 2 I liked to drive. And I’m not sure if that made me weird, it’s not like I would go around telling everyone how much I loved driving. But, I liked it. It brought me a certain excitement, an undeniable rush, a greater than human power, etc. But mostly I liked it for the impulsex. x Whether you give in to an impulse is what makes all the difference when driving. I’m not one to tell you or anyone where/how you should be operating your motor vehicle so don’t take this as a PSA or anything. Really and truly this is kind of a confession, a story, a warning. 3 They were on their third or fourth film in a series of fictionalized histories of the “evil and notorious”. Countess Bathory lived in Hungary in the sixteenth century, killed up to six hundred and fifty people, and is most probably the basis for Dracula. Anyway, my fourteen- and seventeen-year-old children were obsessed with her. Good parenting? I’ll leave that up to you.
temperature slightly higher than I desired and I missed snow,4 but there are worse things. I had taken the elevator to the parking garage because I liked the camaraderie it offered and I hated stairs; I probably would have taken the elevator in a fire. Two co-workers, the closest things I had to friends at work, had been with me, spoken briefly, exchanged niceties of our families and of football. As I said, I liked the camaraderie. The elevator reached my level and I said my goodbyes and exited. The smell of auto gas greeted me kindly and, with a light (and not wholly undesirable) high,5 I found my car—the gray Volvo station wagon6 in spot 0121, as always. 104.3 “The Jam”7 was on. It was one of the few stations to still have an actual, living disc 8 jockey and it was the only station I could listen to. But, I couldn’t actually hear it until I had exited the garage; I guess that’s one thing that modern science still hasn’t been able to figure out. As I took the first left out of the garage, I could hear clearly. My labyrinthine9 road was finally before me. It took a mere five minutes to reach it from work and while it wasn’t necessarily the most direct or speediest route to my doorstep it was definitely the most scenically and aesthetically pleasing. And it only made a seven-minute difference. 4 In case you are not familiar with Santa Monica, or with Southern California, or with weather patterns in the
western United States, I will quickly get you up to speed. It has not snowed in Santa Monica, significantly that is (we have gotten a bit of hail and sleet in the past ten years), since 1949, and it has not snowed in downtown Los Angeles since 1921. The temperature tends to range from sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit in the winter (maybe dropping to the fifties) to ninety-five in the summer (occasionally reaching into the hundreds), pretty much making snow an impossibility. 5 I gave up pot years ago, when my firstborn came along. The gas in the parking garage was the closest thing left in my life to any non-alcohol drug, so I tended to savor it. I guess those instant impulses were also a kind of drug for me. I did savor them, but they weren’t quite as consistent as the smell of gas in the garage. 6 I drove a station wagon my entire adult life. Although not necessarily the “manliest” car, it was indubitably the best. I don’t care which make or model. Just drive a station wagon. It (1) has the interior space of any SUV, (2) the maneuverability of any sports car, and (3) the park-ability of any compact. I remember buying my first station wagon. I wasn’t planning to buy a car, I didn’t even want to. It was at a used auto lot in Yucaipa and I was with my girlfriend of the time and she asked if we could stop quickly and use the bathroom. The lot was the only thing in sight, so we stopped there. Suffice to say, we left in different cars. 7 It played all the best songs from when I was a kid and from when my parents were kids and from when my kids were kids. I possessed a certain disaffection for radio when I was younger, maybe because I held my own taste in such high regard; hell, I did it for everything I liked. Books, movies, etc.: my likings were always the right likings. I guess I was kind of uninhibited too; I never really thought twice about shutting out someone else’s interests just because they weren’t mine. It’s that impulsive shit that got me here in the first place anyway. Luckily, I grew out of it and was eventually able to listen to the radio. 8 Chad “Jelly” LaVache, “Jelly” because it is similar to jam. His catchphrase: “If you’re ever in a jam, tune in to 104.3 ‘The Jam’.” Yes, he rhymed “jam” with “jam”. 9 God I love that word. Originally I had “long and winding” in there, but that’s a Beatles song and a cliché. I think “labyrinthine” sounds better, too. Sorry for the self-indulgence, I should probably keep this story moving because I’m about out of time.
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I twisted and turned and wound my way through the hills, navigating the curves almost out of sheer muscle memory; as I said earlier, I liked to drive. I was stopped briefly at a traffic light, but previously had been able to travel continuously. The light turned green. My foot coaxed the pedal and gently brought the car up to speed. I could feel the whir of the motor and the leather of the wheel and the heat of the sun; I heard wind flying past and the rush of traffic and Chad “Jelly” LaVache introducing “Let’s Dance”;10 I saw the road in front of me and the beauty just past the cliff and the reflection of the sunlight off the street sign ahead. The light shot off the metal and into my eyes as the sky went from yellow to orange to red and the negative space was illuminated: a surge of power, wonderful grandiosity. More pressure on the pedal and, as I crossed the threshold, gravity let go. Finally, I didn’t make the turn; finally, I felt the weightlessness of free-fall; finally, I was part of the entity. I placed my hands gently in my lap as Bowie faded. Finally. I am flying.11
10 David Bowie, 1983, off of the quintessentially 80s album Let’s Dance. LaVache always played the seven-minute
re-mastered version from ’99, which is about the most un-radio friendly thing a disc jockey could possibly do, but that’s probably why I loved his show and the station so damn much. 11 You probably think I’m horrifically depressed or mentally unstable or a madman or something. But I assure you I’m not. I’m human and curious. I urge you to think about it. That one instant: it’s wonderful.
Nate Hollander 26
Nico Brown Cul de Sac Inkjet print 12 in. x 19 in.
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for my mother you wake late now, seemingly it’s fitting. Why wake early. I miss you as you once were. Do you miss her too? when I hear you crying, is it for one gone, like the muted dissonance of a note mangled. “Sing through the phrases!” a fermata, I wouldn’t want to interrupt the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard. 11/30/16 Annie Wendorf
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Anja Clark Interaction Oil on canvas 36 in x 48 in.
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I hate ketchup When we haven’t spoken in a while not because I dislike our talks but they are often soured and putrid as vinegar, dipped into only when your life feels bland and I relish in the good times when your smile would coat me in delight and our love was tasteful not sometimes sweet with that off-putting tang of defeat and on our wedding day in my dreams you would be asked “Mayo always love him” and you utter a yes thick with lies, pale with meaningless, fattened with false promises Butter smile still melts me inside for I am a cracked and hardened mess and you are unhealthy, your love blocks all my arteries with pride and I (think I) will let you kill me Ben Pimstone
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Allie Sassa Knife Ink on paper, scanned and edited on Photoshop 12 in. x 7 in.
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Rasa Barzdukas Feeling Around Inkjet print 15 in. x 10 in.
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Methinks The Lady Doth Protest Too Much I’m trying to be as aware as possible. Even there, I hope I didn’t come across as too naive, or earnest — that’s not what I am. Obviously, I’m not stupid, stupid enough to believe that awareness is wholly attainable; C’mon, give me credit — I’m not some crazy idealist. I’m not trying to look like some visionary maverick who defines themselves by their uniqueness from others, either. (Am I?) I put the parentheses there to give you an idea of how self-deprecating I can be; Obviously, I want you to think of me as insightful. But to point that out myself, would defeat the purpose. If you can’t understand that, you shouldn’t even be reading this.
insecure
And I know I come off as self-absorbed, maybe even an elitist; (and I know you know that I have to say I know) and I know you know how I must be to write this way; Clearly, I’m far from deserving of any such acknowledgement. my syntax is a bit loose, my ideas, expressed rather plainly and my writing, far from succinct. This isn’t the most original idea. I. Know.
But I’d have hoped that there was some beauty in the matter-of-factness of my indulgent self-exposure it, in itself, is the only type of praise I can offer myself at this point; I’d like to finish off this poem with something poignant enough to summarize all of what I’m feeling, but Talia Ratnavale 33
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Birthday Wish I had driven around the block three times. I couldn’t stop, slow down. I couldn’t even look at it. I wanted to forget what it looked like, let it fade from my memory or pretend it had never been there. But the more I thought about it, the more they came flooding back. Memories. Moments. Ava on the tricycle out front. Bringing Bobby home from Saint Michael’s. Wearing that stupidly expensive clown suit for Claire’s 6th birthday. Joan standing in the kitchen, in that sickeningly white gown, on the phone with her shrink. As I continued driving, the car began to feel... unwelcoming. I remembered driving Joanie to her mom’s place, her eyes on me from the passenger seat. They were screaming, “Aren’t you going to do anything? Aren’t you going to save me? Do you still love me? How could you do something like that if you still love me?” Everything she said after the diagnosis seemed to sound something like that. Having lost count of how many times my Buick had driven around the block, I pulled over. I looked to my right, and I was in front of the house. White fence, red door. I’d hoped it was gutted. But Bobby’s silhouette fluttered past the front window, and my eyes that had been dry for so long started to well up. I remember thinking, “Today of all days.” But I didn’t really have a choice. Not one that made sense anyways. So, I collected myself. Rubbed the tinge of remaining lipstick off my lips. A sharp pain pulsed through the left side of my chest. My knuckles were ice, gripping my briefcase as I approached the blood red door. I was not yet a man of the faith at this point, but I found myself praying to anyone listening that my Joanie was still my Joanie. At least for the night. The door came flying open before my trembling fingers could even find the right key. She smiled one of her high school smiles. It was Joanie. It was my Joanie. She hugged me, and I hoped she could smell the perfume that lingered on my collar. I wanted her to hate me. She didn’t deserve this, and I didn’t deserve her. She kissed me where other lips had been and led me into the dining room. There they were, our three angels. Gifts from the Heavenly Father himself. Miracles. They stood in front of a homemade cake, their faces illuminated by the glow of candles. They started to sing me happy birthday. And I swear to you, I felt my heart give out, shrivel up, and break into four equal pieces. Jillian Sanders
Kameron Cooper Paper Face Paper collage on paper 28 in. x 18 in. 35
when my grandfather died my lips were a dying flame— trembling deep crimson. crackles of dead white skin, like midnight frost, spread out, spanning the geography of my flesh. they crystalized onto the edge of my valleys, a half assed attempt at sealing a river of blood. the dryness snowed on my mountains, forming crumbling white caps, but my teeth kept pulling, tugging at my skin’s own version of ice. their sharp edges picked up some of the red and the metallic taste washed out my palette. raw and exposed, i kept picking. Iman Akram
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Vanessa Payne White Cherimoya Stoneware 13 in. x 5 in. x 5 in.
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Chantalle Wang Melting Pot Cut paper 15. in x 15 in.
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Jack Cohen KINGS Inkjet print 19 in. x 12 in. 39
Genie Kilb Jane Copic pen on bristol board 17 in. x 11 in.
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A Cover Girl Writes a Letter Home from the Big City (after “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” by Craig Raine)
No resting actually happens in restrooms, chambers entered by long-haired machines embarking on daily rituals of soaps and suds and snips and tucks, and deep sighs of dissatisfaction never easy, never breezy, maybe(lline) beautiful. “Scarlet” and “Siren” are pigments and oils that hide in tubes, not creamy balms used to heal or soothe, they pop out for air and scratch lips, and may even leave them bleeding. Hot tools are weapons the wielder uses against herself, Sometimes leaving battle scars on her arm — at other times, a singed ear, a jungle of vines and cords and charred hair. Beauty with an edge, because she’s worth it. Falsies are a kohl stick, marking a trail of black, brown, blue — or glitter! washing away in end-of-the-day tears, (only the tears are real) They look at themselves in a portable lightbox and mime the actions they see contorting themselves— a selfie is captured, the self is disregarded, Instagram fed, the soul starved Reaching for their dreams, they dare not sleep as long as only the best will do, as long as beauty lies within. Dear mother and father, please do not ask does she or doesn’t she— Maybe she’s born with it Maybe she woke up like this Jenny Li
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Sophie Kim Rendezvous Inkjet print 10 in. x 7.75 in.
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Literary Editor Elizabeth Kim ’17 Web Editor Jenny Lange ’17 Arts Editor Talia Ratnavale ’17 Associate Literary Editors Iman Akram ’18 Caitlin Baskin ‘19 Associate Arts Editors Elly Hong ’17 Kate Salke ’19 Staff Sarah Conway ’18 Davis Cook ’19 Emma Kateman ’17 Genie Kilb ’17 Katie Kim ’18 Sophie Kim ’19 Oliver Loshitzer ’17 Pria Pant ’18 Kaitlin Shrage ’18 Ben Weinman ’17 Annie Wendorf ’19 Ashlee Wong ’18 Alexa Zuriff ’18 Faculty Advisors Darcy Buck Cheri Gaulke
Back cover: Russell Davis Stone Vases Slipcast porcelain 4.5 in. x 2.5 in. x 1.25 in.
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